Andean Cultural Routes to be a reality

(Quito, June 11, 2008).- CAF representative Luis Paláu-Rivas, and the president of Corporación Taller Visual, Lucía Chiriboga, signed a non-reimbursable technical cooperation agreement to execute the Andean Cultural Routes project.

The objective of the project is to formulate and develop six Andean cultural routes with the aim of recovering and highlighting Andean culture, history and anthropological research in images and research for each of the proposed routes. A guidebook will be published with photographs and explanatory texts on Andean cultural diversity.

The development of Andean Routes will make an essential contribution to the cultural integration agenda between Andean countries. The routes relate to Bolivia, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru. The proposal aims to catalyze the growing interest of national and foreign tourists in discovering and researching the culture, history and archaeology shared by Andean peoples.

The project is expected to last one year during which six Andean cultural routes will be formulated and developed, shared by the countries of the region:

1. Eyes of Water route. Discover one of the values that our peoples have shared: water in the Altiplano, rivers and lakes.
2. Merchants route. Runs through the lands occupied by an extensive trading network initiated in pre-Hispanic times, which stretched almost from the south of Colombia to the north of Chile. The route includes a section from the south of Manabí province in Ecuador to the archaeological city of Chan-Chan in Peru.
3. Altiplano route. Covers the Altiplano shared by Peru, Bolivia and Chile.
4. Silver route. Connects the southern Altiplano of Bolivia with Chile. An important aspect of this route is mining which has created cultural spaces of enormous interest in Bolivia, Chile and Peru.
5. Smugglers route. Runs through landscapes marginal to the main routes between the cities of Oruro (Bolivia) and Arica (Chile) in a world that was formed in the colonial period.
6. Mitimaes route. Although this is not a continuous route it has a particular value in terms of reflecting and reviving Andean integration.

By following these routes, visitors can discover a variety of landscapes and realities. The project is sponsored by the Ecuadorian government, through the Ministry of Coordination of Natural and Cultural Heritage, with support from the Andean university.